Kelly's Bar Quiz Night - Redux

I blogged about the quiz at Kelly's Bar before, and said that I expected that the quizzing would improve with practice, and it certainly has.

We went with a group of friends last week and the pace and quality was excellent, and there was a good turn out and atmosphere.

Highly recommended, and by far the best quiz we have been to in Lyon.

I was also greatly impressed by the (English) barman-with-a-mission. The guy had one goal: to serve as many people as he could, as quickly as possible.

I'd forgotten that this is how it's done in Britain, and have missed it. With no exaggeration, he was serving at five times the rate which I have become accustomed.

So I'm upping my 'service' rating to 5/5.

Top quiz, top barman.

Wallace Bar - Quiz Night

Thursday night, and not much fancying trying to squeeze into Paddy's Corner for the quiz, we decided to head out to the Wallace Bar for their free quiz night.

We left it a bit late, and only arrived at 21h15, and the place was packed. Not a seat in the house.

The Wallace have a system common to many Oirish pubs in Lyon (though the Wallace is supposed to be Scottish) where a human clot of patrons stand or sit shoulder to shoulder at the bar, making it bloody awkward to get served. You then have to carefully extract your beers from between them. Any physical contact will earn you a dirty look for having the temerity to buy drinks at the bar, when everyone knows that bars are for sitting at.

Drinks purchased, we hovered near a table which had a little bit of space at the corner where we could put our drinks down, and the quiz started.

The English quizmaster and his French assistante have a zany, zoo-radio style. I started off liking it, but it did get a bit wearing after a while. Who would have known that the hilarity of amplified burps quickly palls? Marie hated it from the start. If you like that sort of thing, well, they do that sort of thing very well.

The questions were well organised, with good sound and video (for the picture and 'observation' rounds), but the pace was fast, almost frenetic. Tobacco top-ups had to be completed with celerity.

I've had some issues with The Wallace in the past (maybe I'll blog about it some time), but had no problems this evening.

I enjoyed it, and would recommend it, but Marie didn't, and wouldn't.

I had a quick chat with the quizmaster as we were leaving and he told me that he also does a quiz at Flanagan's on Monday nights.

I would strongly recommend getting there by 20h30 so you can bag a table.

Decor: 4/5
Service: 3/5
Price: 3/5
Toilets: 3.5/5

The Wallace, 2 Rue Octavio Mey, 69005 Lyon (google map)
+33 4 72 00 23 91
Dreadful, truly appalling website: http://www.wallacebarlyon.com/